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Make DeSantis Wait Again: With Trump in Florida, DeSantis Does Everything He Can to Get the President's Attention

Posted April 19, 2018

17 Days After DeSantis Said Trump Would Campaign for Him, He Still Hasn’t Shown Up

Donald Trump is back in Florida for the week and hobnobbing with the likes of everyone from Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe to Marco Rubio to Carlos Curbelo.

Yet the President’s biggest supporter is being left out: Ron DeSantis.

On April 2 — seventeen days ago — DeSantis told the Polo Republican Club that “I think the president’s going to come down for me very soon. Which will be very good.” Yet instead of actually campaigning for DeSantis, Trump has made him wait. It’s not the first time. As Politico Florida reported, last year Trump also promised to tweet his support for DeSantis — and then delayed that endorsement for weeks.

“Ron DeSantis’ entire campaign strategy is built around Donald Trump’s endorsement — so it must be particularly painful to be ignored by Trump this week,” said Florida Democratic Party spokesperson Kevin Donohoe. “DeSantis has completely ignored talking about Florida issues or to Florida reporters and instead has focused solely on praising the President and calling for the prosecution of his political opponents. Yet it’s Carlos Curbelo and Marco Rubio — not right-wing Ron — who get Trump's love.”

DeSantis has been doing everything he can to get Trump’s attention:

DESANTIS' AUTHORITARIAN TENDENCIES: Ron DeSantis yesterday joined ten other House Republicans in calling for the Department of Justice to criminally prosecute Hillary Clinton, James Comey and other Obama administration and FBI officials. Vox’s Matt Yglesias said the letter was a sign of creeping “authoritarianism” and noted that it was an endorsement of “politically motivated prosecutions of the opposition party.”

BREITBART TO THE RESCUE: As if calling for the prosecution of Hillary Clinton wasn’t enough, DeSantis got some help from his allies on the Alt-Right this week. Breitbart published a long defense of Ron DeSantis and another article slammed Adam Putnam’s links to the Republican establishment.

LIGHTS, CAMERA, FOX!: The most reliable way to reach the President? Fox News. This week, DeSantis has continued to appear on Fox News… a lot. He was on Fox twiceyesterday to talk about his politically motivated prosecutions of Democrats and law enforcement. And he went on Fox the day before. And the day before that.